Case Study Lesson From a Car Boot Sale That You Can Apply to Your Ecommerce Store

Recently, I was at a car boot sale and was selling old items out of the trunk. The aim was just to make a little bit of money from things I had around the house that weren’t getting much use. What I hadn’t anticipated was just what a great learning opportunity this would be or how many lessons I would pick up that could be directly related back to ecommerce. Here are some of the top things I learned that you can try applying to your own online business.

Sometimes Professional Doesn’t Work Best

I had been selling for a while and had been quite successful, despite the fact that my items were arranged pretty much randomly and without much thought. At this point, the guy at the stall next to me told me to try tidying my items up and presenting them in a more professional manner.

Guess what? Sales slowed the minute I took his advice! So what was going on? Why would a less professional stall sell better?

The answer is simple: people thought that if I wasn’t a ‘pro’ at this, then they would stand a better chance of finding a good deal. In this case, looking like the underdog was actually a helpful thing.

This will apply only in some cases when it comes to ecommerce. You want to look professional to build trust but if you’re selling on eBay for example, then you may find you have more luck if you appear a little less slick and polished!

People Like to Rummage

Something else I found was very popular was when I would put my items into bins or otherwise make it so that people had to route through to find what they wanted.

This had a number of advantages. For starters, it meant that people would have to come and spend time looking in order to see everything I had (meaning they had invested time and would want to get something back in return) and secondly, it meant that they might find things they weren’t expecting.

If you present everything out front, then people can pass by and simply see that there’s nothing they want and decide to keep moving on. This is something you can use directly in your own ecommerce store – make sure that people know there are more exciting offers inside that they will have to hunt for!

People Like Convenience

You know what people absolutely did not like though? Me talking to them. And they hated having to ask for the price.

That’s why I found it helpful to make sure everything in my store had the price on it. On the one hand this meant I got into fewer conversations which was a bad thing as it meant I couldn’t try and sell. But on the positive side, it meant that people could make the decision to buy without any input from me. This reduced the number of steps involved in buying and thereby helped me to make more sales.